Excelsior: A Sequence
by nebroadwe
Summary: He chooses his objective carefully: a busy recruiting station in Iacon's industrial district, where one more bot with new paint and a fake ID shouldn't stand out. (Smokescreen, from rookie to veteran. Written for the '30 Days of Writing: A Drabble a Day' challenge on Tumblr. Cover image by Amber Dawn.)
1. Beginning

He chooses his objective carefully: a busy recruiting station in Iacon's industrial district, where one more bot with new paint and a fake ID shouldn't stand out. By the time Glazier gets his farewell message, he'll be enlisted. He wishes he had her blessing, but she doesn't understand._ Factionalists_, she calls them, Autobots and Decepticons both, as if they conspired to destroy Praxus. He knows better — and he's not one of her spun crystal sculptures, to shatter under fire.

_Art is infinite, but you are unique. Irreplaceable. I forbid you to go._

"Name?" asks the recruiter.

"Uh, Smokescreen," he replies.


	2. Accusation

"Need any help?"

Cascade doesn't answer, glaring instead at his half-disassembled blaster. Basic training is hard, harder even than mining, but he wasn't staying in Kaon to slave away for the greater glory of Megatron. Too bad nobody outside Kaon will hire a mech who can't do anything but dig, if they're hiring at all. The Autobots are Cascade's last chance: succeed and survive, or wash out and starve.

Without help, either way.

But the other rookie leans in, poking at the blaster's works. "Takes three servos to strip these stupid things." Friendly, guileless optics meet his. "I'm Smokescreen. You?"


	3. Restless

Smokescreen can hardly keep step with Cascade and the others as they board the transport. Assigned to the Elite Guard! His spark blazes with pride; his imagination leaps ahead to command a corps under Optimus Prime himself. _Forward! Praxus shall be avenged!_

The transport lifts off with a rumble and a rattle while he's still retaking Tarn. "Whatever's loose back there, stow it!" the pilot shouts.

Cascade elbows him; Smokescreen starts, the rattling stops and he realizes tardily that it came from his own heels, drumming on the deck. "Smooth, Iacon," his friend mutters.

Smokescreen ducks his helm, but grins.


	4. Snowflake

Watching Smokescreen catch snowflakes, Cascade wonders whether he lied about his age at intake. Polar picket duty's dull, sure, but seriously? "Keeping count?" he jibes.

"They really are all different!" Smokescreen says; then a shutter closes behind his optics, the same way it does when he stumbles over his own name. Cascade doesn't pry. Whoever "Smokescreen" is, he acts more like a sparkling run away to join the circus — half elated, half scared he'll be dragged home — than anything else.

And he enjoys a good prank. "Ambush Arclight and Flywheel at shift change?" Cascade suggests.

Smokescreen's optics brighten again. "Sure!"


	5. Haze

First the wind rises; then the wall of dust rolls in. The SWO predicted they'd clear the rust belt before the storm hit, but a prediction's not a promise. Smokescreen's hydraulics squeak as he trundles over obstacles he'd have avoided before the umber haze descended, blinding half his sensors. His altmode's not built for this terrain; rubble scrapes his undercarriage while flying grit scours his mesh, but he shuts his vents and keeps moving.

He exhales his relief when they finally escape the murk and his tires grip the stable surface of an old highway.

Yeah, he can do this.

* * *

**Author's Note:** _"SWO" is an acronym for "Staff Weather Officer."_


	6. Flame

"Special Operations?" Smokescreen says enviously. "Lucky!"

Cascade smirks. Turns out the Autobots do need mechs who can dig. The Elite Guard is being disbanded, its commander Ultra Magnus transferred to the Wreckers (good luck with that, sir!), Cascade to SpecOps as a sapper and Smokescreen to Iacon ... as a security guard. His field radiates gloom, like his spark's been doused with slurry. Cascade's ambitions, by contrast, are burning high. "Don't worry, Iacon," he says, equal parts consoling and condescending. "When I get my company, I'll send for you."

"Me, too!" Smokescreen replies, rising to the challenge.

They shake on it.


	7. Formal

When the door opens, Smokescreen takes three steps into Alpha Trion's office and stands to attention. "Reporting as ordered, sir!" he says, optics on the desk rather than the bot behind it. Maybe he's here to be commended, but he doubts it. He hasn't been off his squad leader's scrap list since he arrived. Summoned by the Master Archivist himself? Out of the crucible and into the smelting pit.

A datapad is pushed across the desktop toward him. "This information may be of interest to you," Alpha Trion's dry voice explains.

His suspicions confirmed, Smokescreen reluctantly takes the pad. He really hates this assignment, all lubricant and polish and no action, and too many rules. _Which one did I break now?_ But instead of a page of regulations, the screen displays a newswire, dateline Kalis, reporting a Seeker bombing raid on a residential neighborhood. _Among those offlined, noted Praxian sculptor Glazier ..._

One of his processors chokes; another shifts into overdrive. _Why was she in Kalis? Why wasn't she in a shelter? What was Air Defense Command doing, defragging their drives?_ Guilt batters his spark like flying shrapnel. He hasn't commed since he left home; he wanted to prove himself — prove her wrong — return a conquering hero ...

"Smokescreen."

"Sir," he responds automatically, stupidly, too shocked to worry that his cover must be blown. _(Or not: no one ever reprimands him for the deception or updates his records. He answers to Smokescreen cycle after cycle, until it's almost as if he's never been anyone else._

_Almost.)_

The Master Archivist extends a servo; Smokescreen hands back the pad. "Will that be all, sir?" he asks.

Alpha Trion nods.

Smokescreen salutes unnecessarily and retreats. He loses himself in the stacks for a while, missing his next shift, and accepts his punishment with grim indifference.

* * *

**Author's Note:** _This chapter refused to be confined to a canonical drabble. I fought the words, and the words won._


	8. Companion

"Level five, stack thirteen, shelf-mark five-two-zero-slash-gee-one-three-ess," Smokescreen recites. "Got it."

"Do not open the container," Alpha Trion reminds him.

"No, sir," he answers, as earnestly as if he were retrieving the Emberstone rather than a fragile datatape. Alpha Trion hadn't planned to take another apprentice, but if Smokescreen's energies aren't harnessed in here, they'll surely generate chaos out there, and disciplinary reports waste valuable storage space.

Smokescreen returns promptly and listens, enthralled, to the static-laced voice of Azimuth preserved on the tape. "Is there more cool old stuff down there?"

"More _archival material,_ yes," Alpha Trion replies, hiding a smile.


	9. Move

_"This is no drill! Move, move, move!"_

But Smokescreen is already in position, the only mech between Alpha Trion and the enemy, his support cut off or offline. Nobody's getting past him, though; they'll have to snuff his spark first.

Then something strikes his helm, and his battle's over.

* * *

The last Omega Key safely stowed, Alpha Trion strews debris around Smokescreen's chassis, then returns to his office to update the database. The Decepticons are taking prisoners, but he won't be one of them. He's played out his endgame on this board in the contest of universes — time to tally up.


	10. Silver

The Decepticons' prisoner transport is as creepy as Smokescreen had expected, a labyrinth of underlit death-gray corridors. At least the dimness makes sneaking around easier, and all the emergency equipment is clearly marked. If he keeps to the shadows and follows the arrows, he's bound to find an escape pod before security finds him.

And there one is, prepped and ready. He slides in, dogs the hatch, and hits the big red button. _Later, 'Cons!_

On the low-def viewscreen the pod's ejection thrusters burn silver against the ship's dark hull, the last light Smokescreen sees before stasis shutters his optics.


	11. Prepared

Finally, Smokescreen gets it.

He sees at last what everything was for: the endless drills, the studying, even the stint in stasis. Destiny was preparing him for this post, to stand shoulder to shoulder with Optimus Prime — _the_ Optimus Prime! — against the enemy. (Sort of. That is, if Optimus weren't hanging from a gantry overhead right now.) But never mind: time to play Kick the Con! Phase Shifter engaged, Smokescreen charges a startled Starscream, knocking him straight out of the Apex Armor and onto his skinny aft.

"Now _that_ was a plan!" he exults.

Oh, yeah, Smokescreen's ready. Half-past ready.


	12. Knowledge

Working with Smokescreen throws Jack off balance. He's used to thinking of the Autobots as, well, grown-ups — veterans of a war that began before the dinosaurs died out. But if Optimus Prime and even Bumblebee are old campaigners, Smokescreen's ROTC. He's full of war stories, but they're not his stories, so they don't weigh him down. Every smile Jack coaxes from Arcee is a victory; Smokescreen never stops joking. If only he had a little more discipline —

_And now I sound like my mom. Great._

"Hey, Jack?"

"Yeah?"

"Why _do_ you drive on a parkway and park on a driveway?"


	13. Wind

Smokescreen activates the Spark Extractor and runs as if the Destroyer himself were chasing him. Nobody knows what the device's range is; even phased to immateriality beneath a body-length of Cybertron's crust, Smokescreen feels its lethal energies fretting at his core. _That's gotta hurt,_ he reflects, and runs faster.

Spark intact, he reaches the rendezvous point only a few nanocycles after the rest of the team. _"We're clear of pursuit!"_ he comms Optimus triumphantly.

The Prime's field surges past his, questing behind him, and the contact is like an arctic breeze across Smokescreen's mesh, damping his ardor. _"Acknowledged,"_ Optimus replies.


	14. Denial

The order to disperse offlines Smokescreen's vocalizer as effectively as any virus. It's the Archives all over again, the 'Cons blasting everything he's supposed to protect, and him helpless. He almost balks when it's his turn to go, but with the Prime's field bracing his, all he can do is salute and obey.

Only when he emerges from the groundbridge, tires slipping on soft moss, does his impotence crystallize into denial. He can't leave Optimus — not like he left Alpha Trion, and Glazier.

_She always said my first word was no,_ he thinks, turning back. _Hope it's not my last._


	15. Order

Squinting against the splendor burning in Optimus's chassis, Smokescreen knows what he's supposed to do: accept the Matrix, lead the Autobots, restore Cybertron. Optimus, optics dimming, practically ordered it. But Smokescreen's always trusted his instincts, and right now they're screaming at him (in Arcee's voice and Cascade's and Glazier's) that he's no Prime. Sure, the part of him that yearns for glory aspires to be one, but the part that drank in Alpha Trion's stories of the Thirteen, thrilling to every unexpected turn, just doesn't believe this twist.

_Sorry, sir,_ he thinks, reaching instead for the Forge of Solus Prime.


	16. Thanks

Smokescreen doesn't tell anyone about turning down the Matrix. (Optimus never mentions it, either, but maybe he didn't notice, being almost offline and all.) He doesn't regret his decision, but that doesn't stop his everyday duties (grunt work, really) from feeling like a demotion. How does he go back to being just Smokescreen after nearly becoming Umbraculus Prime?

The best advice he gets isn't advice at all, but Bumblebee's steady-going example. Patience, that's the ticket — and someday everyone will see what the Matrix saw, and there'll be more than just another job to thank Smokescreen for a job well done.

* * *

**Author's Note:** _In the tradition of dubiously Latinate names for Primes, _Umbraculus _is derived from_ umbraculum, _literally "little shadow," but in use anything that provides shade (e.g. a screen, a parasol, a bower) and also, metaphorically, a school (which is probably related to the concept of "the groves of academe")._


	17. Look

Smokescreen pushes the gain on his sensors until he can count the dust motes on the hangar floor, but all he finds is the chip he knocked off Laserbeak. And cataloging particles can't keep his processor from generating anxious _what-if_s and _if-only_s. What if Ratchet's on Knockout's dissection table right now? The doc's so old; what if his pump fails or his cortex crashes during interrogation? If only Smokescreen had hit Laserbeak square; if only he'd tackled Soundwave; if only —

Ultra Magnus taps his shoulder-guard, startling him. "Take a break, soldier."

"But — "

"A break," Ultra Magnus repeats, disconcertingly gentle.


	18. Doubt

His shoulder took the hit, not his helm, so Smokescreen doesn't understand why he can't make sense of what he's witnessing. His sensors record every detail of Bumblebee's fall, from the impacts of Megatron's shots to the last flicker of the scout's field before the pool of cybermatter engulfs his frame, but Smokescreen's processor generates nothing but an endless loop of _no_ and _my fault_.

Not until Bumblebee returns — not dead and drowned, but healed — to slay Megatron does the cycle break, joy displacing horror. _We did need the Star Saber. I was right, thank the Allspark. I was right._


	19. Transformation

The restoration is more impressive from orbit than it is at planetfall. Smokescreen's awed delight in the renewed gleam of life illuminating Cybertron's geography quickly gives way to dejection at the ton of work the Omega Lock's successful deployment has left for Team Prime. Every structure the war didn't blow up seems to have fallen over.

Exploring in base mode, he follows a trickle of energon to a puddle ringed with crystals — not the carefully harmonized glasshouse cultivars he remembers, but wild growth. Smokescreen prods them curiously, doorwings twitching when they jangle, then rearranges them to play a proper tune.


	20. Summer

Cybertron's axial tilt is less prominent than Earth's, and energon can be mined at any season, which means that no one invented the summer vacation, and that's just sad. Work hard, play hard, right? And who wouldn't want to kick back for a bit, now that they've won the war?

Everybody except Smokescreen, apparently. Undiscouraged, he continues to promote the idea of an aestival holiday until Arcee, his current supervisor, finally gives in. "Okay, hotshot," she says, "you can have your summer break."

"Really?"

"Sure." She uploads a list of chores to his scheduler. "And here's your summer job. Enjoy."


	21. Tremble

It's not that Smokescreen isn't afraid. The Chaos-Bringer in Megatron's body, raising an undead army to annihilate Primus, extinguish all life on Cybertron, and drown the universe in entropy? That's the stuff of human horror films, the ones even Miko prefers not to watch. If Smokescreen stopped to think about what he's facing, he'd be shaking so hard he couldn't aim. So he doesn't stop, just makes the next shot, the next leap, the next quip, and leaves strategy to Ratchet and Arcee and Bumblebee.

He's never felt less worthy of the Matrix, or more relieved it passed him by.

* * *

**Author's Note: **_This drabble was first posted out of order as chapter 19. Oops. _


	22. Sunset

Workday's end usually finds Smokescreen on Iacon's outskirts, taking advantage of diurnal phase shifting and a sheltering ridgeline to enjoy a few nanocycles of radio silence. He shadowboxes along the slope, then settles down to watch for the first star and wish, Earth-fashion, that the next ship home brings an archivist. Until then, Alpha Trion's onetime errand mech is stuck running the Hall of Records because nobody else has even that much library experience. It's ridiculous.

A second star kindles overhead, and his comm crackles. "Arcee to Smokescreen."

_Scrap. _"Smokescreen here," he sighs.

"Return to base. We have a situation."


	23. Mad

The Quintessan envoy's a blowhard, all five mouths spewing bizarre legalese that boils down to _We owned your planet once; we own it still._ Which is slag, right?

"They do not expect to persuade us," Prowl says, "but to give pause to those with whom we might seek alliance. Isolation weakens our defensive posture as well as our negotiating position."

"Long-range scan's inconclusive," Jazz adds grimly, "but you can bet they've got backup lurkin' out past the heliopause, just waitin' to move in for an occupation or an assault."

"So, parley or fight?" Arcee asks, her voice deliberately neutral.

_Fight!_ Smokescreen wants to shout, but as the Council's most junior member, he's learned to keep his vocalizer offline and let his elders argue their way to the obvious. They generally get there in the end. Ratchet's the first to speak, snorting over what everyone hopes is a secure link from Earth. "You can't negotiate with Quintessons," he says. "What one face asserts, another will deny. They are the living embodiment of bad faith."

"The odds of resolving this situation without some form of military engagement are negligible," Prowl agrees. "That said, further discussion of terms would buy us time to gather intelligence and marshal our forces."

"Them, too," Jazz mutters. Prowl's doorwings flare slightly, but he makes no audible reply, and Smokescreen wonders how many times they've had this discussion.

"Only a dull blade doesn't cut both ways," Ultra Magnus puts in. "I concur with Prowl."

Bumblebee, chairing the meeting, looks to Arcee and Smokescreen. They both nod, Arcee soberly and Smokescreen stiffly, hiding an enthusiasm no one else shares. "All right, Commander," Bumblebee says. "Show us what we've got."

Ultra Magnus cues up the tactical display and Smokescreen stifles a cheer. _We beat 'em before; we'll beat 'em again._

* * *

**Author's Note:** _Politics, diplomacy, and military strategy are not the stuff of a canonical drabble. The words win once again._


	24. Thousand

Everything goes so wrong so fast.

First, they lose contact with Earth. Somehow the Quintessons have developed a spacebridge jammer; their favorite trick is to slam an open portal shut mid-transit, which is annoying when the payload's data and horrific when it's personnel.

_(Wheeljack goes berserk in the field after they lose an evacuee transport. "Slag the laws of war!" he shouts when Ultra Magnus reprimands him for brutality. "Why should _we_ give a scrap about 'em when _they_ don't?"_

_"Because we are Autobots, not Quintessons," Ultra Magnus replies coolly, so coolly that Smokescreen isn't sure his spark's in it.)_

Next, Cybertron's defenses are disrupted by the activation of sleeper agents, returnees unwittingly infected with Quintessan control algorithms. Facilities are sabotaged and bots targeted for assassination at random. The threat of espionage practically brings operations to a halt until Jazz and First Aid upgrade the firewalls on everyone with SCI clearance. And even once all the active agents are neutralized, no one quite knows whom to trust anymore.

_(Cheerful, chatty Bluestreak almost gets the drop on Smokescreen before Prowl takes him down, and the derangement of Prowl's field afterward is going to haunt Smokescreen until he offlines.)_

The actual invasion is almost an afterthought, conquering half the planet in the first push and driving the Autobots into a beleaguered huddle centered on the Well of Allsparks. Battle gives way to siege, but delay favors the invaders, who can more easily spare a division than Cybertron a mech.

_(It's like a slow-motion rerun of Unicron's onslaught, except this time there's no one to swoop in and save the day. Optimus is one with the Allspark and the age of Primes is over._

_May be over._

_Smokescreen quietly researches alternate routes to the Core. If anyone asks, he's concerned for its security.)_

* * *

**Author's Note:** _"SCI" stands for "sensitive compartmented information." (And planetary invasions aren't easily drabble-able, either. Another victory for the words.)_


	25. Outside

Smokescreen drags himself along a crevice toward the light whose source he's pretty sure he'll never reach.

He half-expects the narrow mouth to close on him as he squirms through, but its sawtooth edges merely scrape a few more patches of mesh off his armor. Leaking, his HUD clogged with warnings _(low fuel, low charge, low everything)_, he collapses onto a ledge above yet another chasm dimly lit by raw energon veins and the diffuse radiance seeping up from the Core far below.

Too far below.

He's exposed here, a tempting target for the flying, screeching things — not Seekers, not Predacons, maybe not bots at all — that guard the accesses to Cybertron's depths. (And to think he'd been worried about the Allspark's safety. Ha.) But they'll have him sooner or later; the only question left seems to be how long Smokescreen wants to delay the inevitable.

He curls up into a tight, exhausted, painful ball, his body echoing the despairing loops of his processor. He told no one about his plan, not wanting to risk interference or raise false hope. Even if they guess where he's gone, they can't find him now, his signal overwhelmed by the planet's own pulse. He's going to offline alone down here, leaving his team, his family, to be enslaved by the Quintessons.

To believe he deserted them, when all he wanted — all he ever wanted! — was to help.

Smokescreen stares into emptiness and waits for the rush of wings to fill it with death.


	26. Diamond

A glimmer among the shadows rouses Smokescreen from his slow drift toward stasis lock — a glimmer and a whisper. He starts up, weapons powering on automatically, and casts about for the threat. But nothing stirs in the gulf below or clings to the vaults above, nothing but a few euhedral crystals in a tracery of growth like Terran hoarfrost. He's not sure how he missed seeing them before, except that he's been looking downward, not upward — down toward the Core, where perhaps the Matrix of Leadership still burns in unapproachable light.

The Allspark's elusive gleam seems stronger now; the crystals shimmer as it plays across them, emitting a faint, sweet hum. Smokescreen hopes the sound won't draw unwanted attention. Every sensor on alert, he crouches with his back to the wall, apprehensive yet grateful for the respite from a silence so absolute it had his audials generating error messages.

Gradually his processor stills again, self-defense routines cycling down, but stasis fails to claim him. Instead, he realizes how arrogant he's been, convinced that only he can save Cybertron. That right time, right place must have meant right bot after all. That the Matrix has been waiting for him to retrieve it, despite what Optimus said.

_"The Matrix cannot be restored, or passed down to another."_

But just as he always has, Smokescreen ignored his orders to follow his inclinations, putting himself and his friends in needless peril. Oddly, that knowledge no longer mires his thoughts in despair. In this twilight hush, with the crystals murmuring overhead, his choices seem clear, too: stay here and die, or push on and probably die, or go back and maybe live.

Put like that, it's no choice at all.

Smokescreen waits a little longer, gathering his strength, until a disturbance in the atmosphere warns him that the Allspark's guardians are approaching. On impulse, he reaches up and breaks off the largest crystal, tucking it into a seam in his left armguard. _For luck,_ he thinks, though it's not luck he wants.

Then he turns around, taking his first step on the long road home.


	27. Interlude: Victory

After Smokescreen goes missing, the tide turns.

Ratchet and the genius brigade at Optiprime, Raf's tech firm, discover how to circumvent the spacebridge jammer, and Unit E immediately sends help. Colonel Darby directs infiltration teams to sabotage the enemy's ships while Agent Nakadai and her mecha squad join the Autobots planetside. But it's Predaking and his newly sparked warriors whose intervention tips the scales, fighting with a ferocity far greater than their numbers. Scenting weakness, Quintessa's galactic foes finally rally to Cybertron's aid, and the invasion collapses.

Standing shoulder to shoulder, Ultra Magnus and Predaking accept the Quintessan admiral's surrender.

* * *

**Author's Note:** _This drabble is additional to the series, but necessary to the plot. Planetary invasions, as aforementioned, are complicated._


	28. Winter

The lighting in Smokescreen's cell is too bright for his dark-adapted optics but too welcome to forego. So he shades them with a servo and wonders how long he'll be here, and what happens next, and whether he dares ask for the second chance he needs. Technically he's no deserter — he resigned his commission to serve on the Council — but tell that to the contemptuous scouts who found him or the medic who reluctantly treated his injuries.

(Tell it to the dead.)

Then the door opens and Bumblebee's there, and Smokescreen's not ready for his disappointment or his question.

"Why?"


	29. Letters

"Why?"

Smokescreen's plating flattens visibly. "I was trying to help."

"By running off?"

Smokescreen shakes his helm, but instead of explaining sends Bumblebee two data packets. One's his resignation from the Council, and the other — "You want to reenlist in the Guard?" Bumblebee exclaims.

Smokescreen nods. "I missed so much in stasis, but I hadn't realized how much until now. I needed — need — that experience, that training — that _time_." His field seethes with regret and determination. "Please, 'Bee, will you speak for me?"

The irony of that isn't lost on either mech. "Let me think about it," Bumblebee replies quietly.


	30. Interlude: Counsel

"He's changed," Bumblebee argues, and even he is startled by the depth of assurance in his voice.

Maybe he's just countersuggestible. He didn't call this meeting of Team Prime to advocate for Smokescreen; he only wanted help deciding what to do about his request. But the others (everyone except Ultra Magnus, who's busy, Ratchet, who's off-planet, and Wheeljack, who refused to come) are in no mood to debate the question. Arcee and Bulkhead are still too full of the fury that follows relief and Knockout, freshly decorated for bravery under fire, doesn't seem to care. "I admit, anyone _can_ change," he says, "but not everyone will. I agree with Wheeljack: let the little nuisance do his time."

Since what Wheeljack actually said was _Let the slagger rot!_ Bumblebee winces. "I'm not saying he shouldn't," he replies. "This is about what happens afterward."

Arcee shakes her helm. "He thinks he needs more training?" she asks. "He _was_ trained, 'Bee — by Ultra Magnus and by Alpha Trion — "

"And then spent most of the war in stasis," Bumblebee counters. "Were any of us ready for battle straight out of boot camp? Did we do better our first cycles on the front lines?"

"You did," Bulkhead says. "At Tyger Pax."

That brings the conversation to a screeching halt. Arcee's engine snarls before she can cut it off and Knockout raises a brow-plate and mimes a soundless whistle. Bumblebee simply stares at Bulkhead. EM field pulled in tight, the Wrecker nevertheless meets his gaze steadily — it's a nasty hit, but a fair one, Bumblebee has to admit as his shock fades. Fortunately, the war taught him how to hit back. He reboots his vocalizer, then says, "That was before I attacked an active MECH facility against orders with no T-cog and no backup — "

"Ouch," remarks Knockout _sotto voce_, then yelps as Arcee elbows him viciously in the chassis.

" — and Smokescreen stayed behind at Darkmount," Bumblebee concludes, ignoring the interruption.

Everybody looks away from him at that. Bulkhead shuffles, Arcee frowns, and Knockout rubs at the spot where her elbow met his ventral plating. Resisting the urge to cross his arms and plant his pedes, Bumblebee wonders again why he's pushing this. Smokescreen's always sorry after he screws up, always claims to have learned from his mistakes. But maybe what's different this time is that he isn't saying he knows better. Maybe he's finally ready to do better.

Characteristically, Bulkhead breaks down first. "The kid's spark always was in the right place," he says, glancing at Arcee.

She exhales audibly, a habit picked up from Nurse Darby. "I can't support this," she says, but Bumblebee hears the faint undertone of regret in her voice, and sees his opening.

"Then don't," he says. "Just don't oppose it."

That earns him a slight, crooked smile, and he turns to Knockout, who blinks at him. "I'm not on the Council, thank the Allspark," the medic declares with a shrug. "I don't even know why I'm here." He heads for the door, but not before tossing Bumblebee a look that says, as clearly as any comm, _I know exactly why I'm here, and you owe me for this, Bug._

Bumblebee refrains from rolling his optics, and hopes that favor will be all he's called upon to pay on Smokescreen's account.


	31. Simple

When Ultra Magnus seconds him to a Predacon comitatus, Smokescreen wonders whether it's a privilege or a punishment. A decacycle reenlisted, he's still earning back the trust he forfeited, still veering awkwardly between obedience and initiative. But to the Predacons he's just _The Autobot,_ and when Razorclaw tells him (in blunter terms than any he's heard since basic) exactly what he's good for, it's the unvarnished truth. And the first time he clears the way for Windracer to take down a rampaging nosoron, it doesn't feel like drill or heroism, but like getting the job done.

As simple as that.


	32. Promise

Smokescreen sips his energon and immediately resolves to go easy: it's natural high-grade, probably Terran, maybe even the stuff Raf's great-something-grandkids still send every Christmas. The reception's crowded with bots halfway to overcharge already, but the head of Cybertron's defense forces owes a clear cortex to the planet he's just promised to preserve and protect.

"Marshal?"

He turns at the sound of Bumblebee's voice. "President."

"Ready?" Bumblebee asks, raising his own cube.

Smokescreen grins wryly, half at his friend _(Now you ask?)_ and half at himself (who once would've answered, _Sparked ready!),_ and returns the salute. "As I'll ever be."


	33. Career

Sometimes it seems to Smokescreen that his job entails solving the same five crises over and over with a staff of bots _just like him —_ rookie-him, not marshal-him, and whose exasperated curse ensured that? — until an entirely new crisis flares up and his people are so competent, so brilliant, that he's not sure he even deserves them.

As the cycles turn he mourns the passing of his mentors — Ultra Magnus, Arcee and others — eulogizing them as exemplars of service he cannot hope to equal, without noticing that his bright-opticked juniors now emulate him as he once did his own heroes.


	34. Future

Long after his shift ends, Smokescreen lingers working in his office, comm set to filter all but the most urgent pings. Trouble comes and goes, but administrivia endures, and his aides dumped a monumental stack of data-pads on his desk today. No one is looming politely over him to guarantee that they're dealt with, however, so he can't have fallen too far behind. Yet.

The early moon, rising over a neighboring tower, throws a beam across his to-do pile to illuminate the crystal propped against it. The shard hasn't sung since he plucked it all those cycles ago, but he keeps it to remind himself of responsibility and self-denial, and light in the dark. He stretches and stands, then goes to the window, looking down past Iacon's bright facades and coursing arteries of head- and tail-lamps into the shadows between. Unicron is contained, the Decepticons are no more and the Quintessons beaten back, but the darkness remains, waiting its chance — as it always has and always will, until all are one in Primus.

A smile lifts the corners of his mouth. _No worries,_ he assures the Allspark. _We've got it covered._

Behind him, unseen, unheard, the crystal glimmers, chiming agreement.

* * *

**Author's Note: **_My thanks to those who read, followed and reviewed this sequence as it was being posted. Your interest and encouragement is much appreciated._


End file.
